Washougal police chief plans ‘minor restructuring’

WASHOUGAL — With Chief Zane Freschette settling into his new position, the Washougal Police Department will undergo some changes in 2025.

Freschette, who assumed the role from retired police Chief Wendi Steinbronn in January, recently told the Washougal City Council that the department will experience a “minor restructuring” later this year.

“This is going to sound worse than what it is, I suppose, but there are a few areas of the department that haven’t necessarily had direct supervision, historically,” Freschette said, “so we’ve added a second captain that will be helping with some of that.”

Freschette said the police department also needs a more timely equipment replacement schedule.

“That’s not an insignificant undertaking,” he said.

Freschette is putting together a fleet study to determine how the department can replace its vehicles faster and more efficiently. The department currently replaces its vehicles every six to eight years, “a very long time for the use that they get,” Freschette said.

“We’re going to try to figure out what the best way is for us to maintain vehicles for a longer life, in a way that’s the most economical for the city,” he said.

Freschette told city officials that his department is seeking to attain accreditation from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. The Washougal Police Department first received accreditation in 2022 and must show the state association every four years how it has been following accreditation standards.

“It’s proving to be difficult with having that occur so close after I became chief,” Freschette said.

Calls spike in 2024

Freschette said Washougal police responded to 12,472 calls for service last year, a 17.18 percent increase compared to 2023. Freschette attributed the increase to the city’s nearly 4 percent population increase as well as state legislative changes that, he said, allowed officers to respond to certain types of calls again.

“In any case, our workload went up quite a bit in 2024,” Freschette said, “and I would expect that to continue to increase in 2025 and moving forward.”

The majority of the cases investigated by the department in 2024 involved larceny or theft (21.41 percent), assault (22.63 percent), vandalism (12.32 percent), violation of protection orders (7.88 percent) and fraud (6.87 percent).

Washougal’s calls for more significant crimes decreased from 29 per 1,000 residents in 2023 to 25 in 2024, but Freschette said “those numbers are within an expected range.”

In 2024, the department had average response times of 3 minutes, 41 seconds on Priority 1 crimes; 4 minutes, 57 seconds on Priority 2 crimes; 9 minutes, 36 seconds on Priority 3 crimes, and 26 minutes, 25 seconds for Priority 4 crimes.

Freschette said his department’s goal is to arrive at the scene of higher priority crimes in five minutes or less.

“That’s a high bar, but it’s one that’s important,” he said. “We want our community to understand that when a bad thing happens, an officer is going to be there as quickly as they can.”

The department received 856 calls for animal control service in 2024, an increase from 603 in 2023, and impounded 80 animals in 2024, a 23 percent increase over the previous year.

“We have two animal control officers that are shared between the two cities,” Freschette said, adding that Washougal tends to get more animal-control calls than Camas.

The police department received 23 public record requests from its body-worn camera program in 2024, the program’s first full year.

“Body-worn camera public records requests are a very significant undertaking,” Freschette said. “They’re extraordinarily time consuming.”

The Washougal police department staff includes 22 sworn, three nonsworn and two animal control officers, Freschette said.

“We currently have one nonsworn vacancy and one animal control vacancy. We’ll be filling those soon, we hope,” he said. “When all allotted positions are filled, I think we’ll be adequately staffed into 2026. I foresee a need to potentially add sworn and nonsworn staff during 2026 or 2027.”